Saturday, December 10, 2016

"Either that is true, or it is not."

"There is only one reason why the Evangelists' christological interpretation of the Old Testament is not a matter of stealing or twisting Israel's sacred texts: the God to whom the Gospels bear witness, the God incarnate in Jesus, is the same as the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Either that is true, or it is not. If it is not, the Gospels are a delusional and pernicious distortion of Israel's story. If it is true, then the figural literary unity of Scripture, Old Testament and New Testament together, is nothing other than the climactic fruition of that one God's self-revelation. As readers, we are forced to choose which of those hermeneutical forks in the road we will take." Richard B. Hays, Echoes of Scripture in the Gospels (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2016), 364-365. I have read only this Conclusion.